Ten Ways to Sunday
by poeticgrace
Summary: Ten telling drabbles focusing on different Sundays in the lives of our favorite Human Beings.
1. Ten Ways to Sunday

_There is a meme floating around where you list ten favorite characters from a fandom and match them with their assigned slots on ten different prompts to produce ten single sentences. Here are my results. Let me know if you like them, and I just might turn them into a series of one-shots._

* * *

First Date (4&6 – Troy & Britta): He remembers Abed telling him about that famous scene in _Sleepless in Seattle_ where Tom Hanks talks about magic, but Troy doesn't really get it until he helps Britta out of the car one Sunday night in May.

Angst (7 – Shirley): Her mother always told her that nice girls don't get knocked up, and that's why Shirley doesn't bother telling her that she'll be a grandmother for a third time until after the Sunday morning after Ben is born.

AU (1&8 – Jeff and Neil): As a personal trainer, Jeff never thought of his clients as anything more than jobs to be completed, but a lost, overweight young man named Neil changed all of that on one rainy Sunday afternoon.

Threesome (3,6&9 – Abed, Britta and Pierce): They were the unlikeliest of comrades, but it was Abed, Britta and Pierce that rallied around Troy that fateful Sunday when the doctors told them there was a slim chance for recovery.

Hurt/Comfort (5&10 – Dean Pelton and Chang): In a way that only a true outsider could understand, Dean Pelton spent his Sunday watching as Ben Chang tried and failed yet again to work his way into the elusive study group.

Crack Fic (1 - Jeff): It was Sunday morning, which meant Jeff had approximately six hours behind the sewing machine ahead of him.

Dark Fic (4&10 – Troy & Chang): Being a minority in a predominantly white community was never easy, and that's why Troy reached for a scrub brush that Sunday when the graffiti started showing up on the windshield of Chang's moped.

Baby Fic (5&9 – Dean Pelton & Pierce): They both wanted to be the godfather when Annie and Jeff had their first kid, and they were both crushed at the baptism one Sunday afternoon when Troy got the title by default.

Fluffy (2&8 – Annie and Neil): Once upon a time, two lost souls had needed saving, and their savior came on two different Sunday nights in the form of one Jeffrey Winger.

Death Fic (1&3 – Jeff and Abed): Saying goodbye was never easy, but Jeff knew it was his responsibility to say the words the rest of the group couldn't say that cold and lonely Sunday in Greendale.


	2. Troy & Britta

He remembers Abed telling him about that famous scene in _Sleepless in Seattle_ where Tom Hanks talks about magic, but Troy doesn't really get it until he helps Britta out of the car one Sunday night in May. They had been together for maybe a month at that point, carefully dating without ever really fully admitting it to the rest of the group. Britta had told him that they needed to start out slow, pretending that she still wasn't looking for anything serious. Troy knew that she needed for him to act more okay with than that than he really was, so he was really starting to get the hang of this whole compromise thing.

Really, the only hard part of the whole situation so far had been hiding it from his friends. Sure, Abed definitely had his suspicions, and Britta had overheard Annie casually mention something to Jeff when she had met the two of them for coffee last week. Shirley seemed to always be giving Troy these knowing looks, and Piece had given Britta a very strange talk about respecting Troy's virtues. Troy felt guilty for lying to all of them, but he knew that this is what he had to do if he wanted to make things work with the unsuspecting girl of his dreams.

Perhaps that's why it catches him by surprise that night. It's something as simple as taking her hand that makes him think twice about the swirl of emotions going on inside of him. The two of them had been through a lot the past year, with her playing the perpetual back-and-forth with Jeff and him so irrevocably mixed up in the whole air conditioning school debacle. Now that they had finally made it out the other side, Troy finally had a better sense of what he wanted out of life. While Jeff wanted to return to his legal world and Shirley wanted to start a business and Britta wanted to change the world, Troy just wanted to enjoy his life. Right now, he realized, spending time with Britta was what made him happiest in the world.

"Have I told you tonight that you look beautiful?" he said softly as he rested his hand on the small of her back. Britta smiled up at him with a pretty blush upon her cheeks, almost self-conscious as she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her left ear. It was rare to see her let down her guard like this, but Troy loved the version of her that wasn't afraid to let him in. "Because you do look very, very beautiful."

"Thank you," she replied as she stopped short of the restaurant door to let him open it for her. It was a tiny thing, but Troy saw it as a small victory. It was her way of letting him, of recognizing that he was a man and that maybe it was okay to let someone do something to take care of her. "And thanks for coming to this place. I know you're still not sold on this whole vegan thing, but I really think you'll like some of these dishes if you give them a chance."

"I'm willing to try if you are," he replied, and they both knew that he was talking about more than just the restaurant menu. Once they were seated at a private table in a warmly intimate corner of the small cafe, he reached for her hand across the table and looked into her wide eyes. "Britta, there's something I need to tell you."

He saw the flash of concern flash in her gaze as she peered at him across the table. "I don't like the sound of that," she admitted, "but we have an agreement that means you can tell me anything, Troy. But if you are going to break up with me here, can you make it fast? They know me here, and if I want to be able to come back, I don't want to make a scene."

Troy smiled warmly as he brushed his thumb over her palm. There was a little more of the petrified Britta that he had come to know. "Nothing like that, I promise," he assured her. "Actually, it's the opposite of that really. I just wanted you to know that I really care about you and that I'm glad that we're together. I know it hasn't been easy for you, so I hope you know how happy you've made me."

"You make me happy, too," she grinned joyfully. "You make it easier, all of this - everything. I wasn't sure that I was ready to have a boyfriend again. I've made so many mistakes, and I didn't want to ruin our friendship by letting this become another one. I was sure I would mess it up by now, but I've never been so happy to be so wrong."

"Britta, the other thing I wanted to tell you tonight, the one thing that I've been thinking about more than anything lately, is that you are very special to me. I could really see us being together for a long time, and when I think about my future, you are the biggest part of it," he confessed. "I came to Greendale not having a clue of what I wanted. I just knew that I wanted to be the furthest thing from the person that I was in high school. Meeting everyone, meeting you - I finally found some direction for the life I want to live."

"When everyone started coming at me earlier this year about plumbing and air conditioning repair, it felt like it was just another thing people expected me to do. It was like football. Just because I was good at it, I was supposed to love it and want it to become my life," he told her. "I came to realize that I need something more than that. I need the challenge to find out who I really am or I'll just fall back into old habits. You challenge me to want to be better. It's because of you that I've figured out that I deserve more than just these meaningless things that come easy to me."

"So what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that what I want out of my life is to spend it with you. I want to watch you try to change the world and figure out my own way to make a mark. Maybe I'll be a teacher, I don't know. The only thing I do know for sure is that I don't want to do any of it without you by my side," Troy finished up. "Britta, I love you, and I can't wait to see what our future holds together."

Tears were shining in her eyes by the time he finally stopped talking. "Oh, Troy," she exhaled, her voice subtly hinting at the sobs she was just barely managing to keep at bay. "That might be the most perfect thing anyone has ever said to me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she confirmed with a nod. "It was like..."

"Magic," he answered for her.

Afterward, when he told Abed about his night, his best friend immediately drew the parallels between the old movie and this real life love story. Troy knew that one ended at the top of Empire State Building on Valentine's Day with a cute kid that was wise beyond his years. He wasn't sure where his own would end up, but he knew one thing. Britta was where his story was beginning, and he couldn't wait to see what this magic had in store for them.


	3. Shirley

Her mother always told her that nice girls don't get knocked up, and that's why Shirley doesn't bother telling her she'll be a grandmother for a third time until the Sunday morning after Ben is born. She probably sat in her car for a good hour before she had the strength to slide the key into the ignition. It took her another thirty minutes before she found the strength to actually put the vehicle into reverse and pull out of the driveway. Two hours after the whole thing started, she found herself in the grocery store parking lot debating what confectionary treat she could bring with her to explain away the whole situation.

Just as Shirley was debating the merits of scones versus danishes, she heard a gentle tapping on her window. "Jeffrey?" she mumbled in confusion as she rolled down the window. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same," he said with that trademark grin, the one that had gotten so many women in trouble and probably even saved a few. "Shouldn't you be home resting on your laurels or something? Besides, I might not know a lot about kids, but I've seen enough TV to know that you're not supposed to be driving. How'd you manage to sneak past Andre?"

Shirley smiled and shook her head slightly. "I think we both know that no one keeps me from doing anything once I put my mind to it," she reminded him. "I'm just on my way to see my mom."

"Your mom, huh?" Jeff asked rhetorically. Shirley had been through a few issues with her mom since she had reconciled with Andre, things she didn't like to talk about much. Mostly, the two women just pretended that nothing was going on when they went for their bimonthly spa treatments. Jeff had run into them once when he had been on his way to a facial appointment, and Shirley had admitted later that the visits were typically far from relaxing.

"She doesn't know about Ben yet," Shirley admitted quietly. "She didn't even know that I was pregnant. I didn't really have the courage to say much after the lecture she gave me about Andre. I've mostly managed to avoid seeing her since the wedding. I figured it would just make everything easier. I had enough stress with the whole Chang situation."

Jeff cocked his head slightly to the side. They had all been witness to the stress that had plagued Shirley during that final trimester of her pregnancy. He also knew what it was like to run from something that scared you. He was probably better at it than anyone he knew.

"And now you're going to tell her?"

"She deserves to know she has another grandson. She loves the boys. It wouldn't be fair to her or to Ben for them to miss out on each other," Shirley allowed. "That's the thing about being a mother, Jeff. You wake up one day and all of a sudden, there are these people that matter more than you."

"Kind of like having friends," he smirked. "If it anything like knowing you all, I can't imagine the guilt that is going to come along with being a father."

"You'll wear it well," she said confidently. "Look how far you've already come."

"Look how far _you've_ come, Shirley," Jeff reminded her. "You are a strong and independent woman. The woman you were that first year at Greendale would hardly recognize who you've become. I'm proud to call that incredible person my friend. Your mom should be proud to call you her daughter. If I have learned one thing it's that if you give people a chance, they might just surprise you."

"Like we surprised you?"

"Like you all continue to surprise me. Pierce continues to teach me about patience on a daily basis, and Troy has brought this incredible sense of childlike wonder into my life. Abed has shown me how to accept people without wanting to change them. Britta makes me want to make a difference in the world, and you remind me just how good the world can be."

"And our Annie?"

"Annie has probably taught me a little bit about all those things and a whole lot more," he smiled. "But I think we both knew that."

Shirley nodded and returned his smile. "We did," she confirmed, "I just wanted to make sure that you knew that I knew. I also know what you're trying to tell me, Jeff. I hear you loud and clear."

"So why don't I follow you over to your house and you can drop off your car," he proposed. "I will drive you to your mom's and wait in the car until you're done talking to her. And afterward, we'll go to that diner and get you a cup of tea so you can tell me everything."

"Jeff, really, you don't have to..."

"I know I don't, but I don't want you to worry," he told her. "I got this, Shirley. I got you."


	4. Neil & Jeff

As a personal trainer, Jeff never thought of his clients as anything more than jobs to be completed, but a lost, overweight young man named Neil changed all of that on one rainy Sunday afternoon.

Jeff was pretty much the antithesis of Neil. His body was everything to him, a vessel that had the ladies paying homage to him on the regular. He treated it like a temple, carefully considering everything that went into it and everything that he did with it. Most of the time, he saw guys like Neil has nothing more than the very lazy means to a very rewarding paycheck. It might sound cold but it wasn't intentional; it's just sort of how it was.

However, on that particular day, Jeff decided to break one of his own rules and ask how Neil was really doing. After his client had rattled off his daily caloric intake and his overall level of activity for the weekend, Jeff wiped the light sheen of sweat of his forehead and invited the younger man to take a seat on the bench opposite of him. He had seen signs like these before in a few different guys over the years. It was usually solved by something as formulaic as his sure-fire remedy for getting past a breakup or a few pointers designed to build their confidence so they could make a professional impact. However, he knew that there was something deeper – something more permanent – that was plaguing Neil. Whatever demons this lost soul was fighting off had really pulled him under.

"Neil, can I ask you a question?" Jeff asked intently, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

He had a good life outside of work, a mom who still made him the center of her universe and a girl who really loved him. He shared a cute little house in a trendy neighborhood with Annie and had the better part of a down payment tucked away in his top dresser drawer beneath. With all that going for him, it was hard to ever imagine being as sad as Neil seemed in that moment. However, dark memories from a repressed childhood reminded him that it was more than possible to relive those days again.

Neil looked over at his trainer and shrugged noncommittally. He never really said much during his sessions, just grunted in agreement or dissent to Jeff's questions and statements. The only time he said more than a few word was when Jeff made him tell him about his diet and fitness regiment, and even then, it could be like pulling teeth. "I don't see why not," he finally muttered as he looked up at Jeff beneath a mop of curly hair. "You might as well."

"I know you don't like to talk much, man, but something has really had you down these past few weeks. I thought it might get better when you started to see some results, but it only seems to be getting worse," Jeff replied. He leaned back a little, flexing his abs in habit, before bending forward again. "Is there something I should know or anything you want to talk about?"

"Something you should know? Not really," Neil answered softly. "Want to talk about? Not with you."

"Look, I know I don't really know you that well, and we haven't ever talked about why you are here. Maybe I should have asked you that first," Jeff admitted despite himself. He hated when he had to make it personal because then they became more than machines, and really, that's what he liked to think of himself as. The only people that were really more to him than that were his mom and Annie, and it had taken the latter five years to crawl her way into his heart. "Everyone has their something. What brought you here?"

Jeff barely heard his answer over the pounding bass line of the latest hip hop hit blaring over the speakers in the crowded gym. "A woman," Neil said. "Well, actually two of them."

"Ah, women," Jeff grinned fondly. "Women I can probably help with."

Neil shook his head defiantly. "One of those women is my mom so probably not," he disagreed. "And besides, she's dead so there's not a whole lot of figuring that out anyway. Heart attack, two months ago, in the middle of the bakery over on 27th Street. She had been going there every morning for thirty years to get her two doughnuts and coffee to go on her way to the office. I even went with her as a kid. When people say she lived life large, they don't just mean her affinity for adventure. I guess I should have seen it coming."

Genetics and family illness were two of the biggest triggers for a certain type of client, so it made sense to Jeff that Neil would seek a solution. "Well, there are a lot of things we can do – and are already doing – to make sure that what happened to your mom doesn't happen to you," Jeff assured him. "You've already made some great progress."

"It's not just that. My mom was all I had, my entire family. My dad split when I was a kid, and it was always just her and me against the world. Part of me wants to eat myself to death so I can just get back to her quicker. It seems a lot less painful if you ask me."

"Maybe," Jeff agreed, "but it would also be the cowardly way out. I have to believe that your mom would want you to make more out of your life. Moms are like that, you know. Mine has always been all about me living up to my full potential. I thought I would be a lawyer for the longest time just because of that. Can you imagine – _me _as a lawyer?"

A snort of laughter escaped past Neil's pursed lips in a rush of air. "Not in a million years."

"Exactly. Eventually, I just realized that she wanted me to be happy, and doing this, helping people change their lives, it makes me happy," Jeff confessed. He stopped short and laughed. "Huh, it makes me happy."

"And you're just now figuring that out?" Neil asked smartly.

"Believe it or not, yeah," Jeff admitted. "I guess I have you to thank for that."

Neil looked down at his hands and then back up at the trainer again. "Well, you're welcome," he said, a slow smile overtaking all of his features. It was the first genuine Jeff had ever seen on his face. "And maybe you're right. I guess I do owe it to her to see her work through. God knows she put in the time."

"So we'll do the work, and when you get to where you want to be, we'll celebrate in your mom's memory. I have to think that she'd like that."

"Yeah, she definitely would," Neil agreed. "Now, about that other woman..."

"Ah, so there is a woman!"

"Isn't there always?" Neil asked rhetorially.

A flash of Annie's smiling face passed through his mind. "Yeah, man, there's always a woman."


	5. Abed, Britta & Pierce

They were the unlikeliest of comrades, but it was Abed, Britta and Pierce that rallied around Troy that fateful Sunday when the doctors told them there was a slim chance for recovery. He had been standing at the stove one minute, waiting for the water to boil, and flat on his back the next minute. Three hours later, he still hadn't regained consciousness. Abed already tired of the blank white walls.

The neurologist told them it was a cerebral aneurysm, which really just meant that part of his cerebral artery had basically blown without any real warning. The older man, a kind soul with gentle blue eyes and the patience of Job, had sat with them for nearly an hour that first night to explain everything. It was a Grade Five on the Hunt and Hess scale, whatever that meant. The part that Abed understood was that Troy was in a deep coma, approaching the moribund state. Britta's quick Google skills told them that meant he was near death.

"I'm sorry, Miss," the doctor had told a devastated Britta, resting his hand just briefly on the blonde's shoulder before she lost all of her composure completely. Pierce had stepped up then, easily folding her into his arms and showing the elusive paternal side he kept hidden away. "We have some choices that we need to consider at this point. I don't see any sign of the coma lessening. I want to talk to you about surgical options."

It was only then that Abed and Britta found out that Troy had set it up so that the two of them could make decisions for him in case he was incapacitated. One glance at the documents by Pierce's team of lawyers confirmed that they had joint power of attorney. As he had slowly moved away from his childhood religion, he had come to trust a little more in the modern medical system. His own family wouldn't necessarily respect those newfound beliefs, so he relied on the two people closest to him to make the call when he couldn't.

"So what we are looking at here is a subarachnoid hemorrhage near the base of the skull," the doctor explained. "There is a newer technique that's been around since the early 90s called endovascular coiling. If we go that route, I would take a catheter in through the groin and to the cerebral artery so that we can plant it into the actual aneurysm. A series of little coils will help clot the blood and prevent further bleeding. Depending on what we find, it's possible that we would need a stent, but I wouldn't really know for sure until I could get in there."

Abed looked down at Britta's scrawled notes. "And the complications?"

"It's kind of a give and take really," he answered. "The mortality rate is lower but the reoccurence level is higher than it would be with clipping. If I was to do surgical clipping, I would basically perform traditional brain surgery that would put a special clip right on the source of the swelling. There is a newer approach that I think would actually be pretty successful where we would do a endoscopy right through his nose."

"Well, that sounds good, right?" Britta asked rhetorically as she looked to Abed for confirmation. Neither of them wanted to make this call alone. "I mean, the reocurrence level is better and it seems less invasive."

"But he has a better chance of dying."

Pierce looked between the two before turning to the doctor. "Listen, doc, point blank. This is your kid, what would you pick? What is going to give him the best chance at a long life with the weirdo and blondie here?"

The doctor couldn't help but smile at Pierce's frankness. He could be a befuddling fool sometimes, but he also really loved the members of his group like family. They were his children in a lot of ways, and none of them meant as much to him as Troy. The year that he had shared his home with the young man had been among the most fulfilling of his life in a lot of ways. He had been there after Pierce's mom had passed away, preventing him from just knocking around the mansion like a lost soul.

"I would recommend the endoscopic endonasal clipping. It is risky, but I truly like Troy's odds best with this approach," he said as confidently as he could manage. He looked through the window over Abed's shoulder to where his patient was sleeping peacefully. "He obviously trusted you two to make the call, but if it was my son, that's the way I would go."

"Then that's what we'll do," Abed decided as he looked at Pierce and then Britta. She nodded resolutely in agreement, looping her arm through his. "Can we get a minute with him before he goes in?"

"I'll start prepping the team right now. We should be able to get him down in less than an hour. You have until then," the doctor said before patting Abed's shoulder. "I am going to take care of your friend. I promise I will do everything in my power to save him."

After the doctor headed down the hallway toward the nurses' station, it was decided that Pierce would be the first to go in. Abed pulled Britta toward the waiting room to get her some coffee so that he could have some time alone with Troy. He really wasn't sure what to say as he watched the younger man sleep from the doorway. The whole thing still didn't quite make sense.

Pierce finally made his way into the private room and pulled a chair to the edge of the bed. "I am going to keep this brief, Troy, because we really don't have much time. I just wanted you to know that I'm here and that I'm not going anywhere," he told Troy. "I'm watching out for them until you get back, but let me tell you, there's a reason this is your job. They need you, we all you do. You're our family now."

After he had left, it was Britta's turn to come in. "We're still so new, and I really don't know what I'm supposed to do here. We've been friends – best friends – for six years now and dancing around this thing for two of them. Now that I've finally figured out that I'm actually in love with you, I can't lose you. So you're just going to have to come back to me because this sucks way too much without you. Who else is going to save the world with me?"

Abed handed her a tissue when she came out of the room. No matter how sad he felt inside, he still hadn't shed a single tear. It just wasn't how he functioned, and the one person that got that wasn't there to comfort him. Rather than wax poetic about his feelings, he only dealt in facts. Troy understood that, and it wasn't going to change now.

"Pierce and Britta are here with me. The doctor seems to know what he is doing," he informed his unresponsive friend. "Jeff and Annie are trying to get back from Chicago tonight, Annie is a total mess. Shirley is on her way too. You know they finally made it to Disney World. Everyone is going to be waiting to see you, so you have to hang in there, Troy. You're my best friend. I just thought you should know that." He waited for any small sign of movement before he added the one thing he always struggled to say the most. "I love you, Troy, so you have to get better."

Forty-eight hours later, after the entire gang had made it to the hospital and Troy had finally woken up from his dreamless state, it wasn't Shirley or Annie or Jeff or Pierce or even Britta that he asked for first. Sure, he would eventually seek out the blonde and the elder of their group, but it was Abed that he needed to see most. He needed to know that he was okay because somehow if Abed was okay, Troy was sure that he would be okay. And as Britta and Pierce watched the two of them laughing with each other in the cold room in the ICU, their worlds subtly shifted back into place.


	6. Chang & the Dean

In a way that only a true outsider could understand, Dean Pelton spent his Sunday watching as Ben Chang tried and failed yet again to work his way into the elusive study group. The Dean could put on a good act, but he knew the life he lived in his head was nothing close to his much lonelier reality. While the group did its best to occasionally show they cared, he was far from a critical component to its existence. Rather, like Chang, he was just a bystander to the magic they had created together.

There were times when they both managed to work their way into the inner circle. Chang had done it a few years ago when he had temporarily lived with Jeff and then again when he had become Pierce's best friend for that night at the carnival. For his part, he had shared a very special day with Jeffrey when he was really supposed to be helping Annie move. Of course, between their romantic Mexican excursion and time reenacting one of the most romantic Seals song ever created, his supposed best friend had spent most of their day together checking Annie's Twitter timeline. He had felt mostly okay being second to her.

But now, it was all just really a little bit sad. The seven of them were sitting on the grassy knoll in the center of the quad in their final days of their final year at Greendale, enjoying an unseasonably warm April afternoon studying together for a history final rather than crammed in the study room. Chang kept trying to throw his frisbee in the middle of their circle, but Abed and Troy had both stopped his advances by just tossing the plastic disc over by the science building. Neither noticed the crestfallen face on the older man's face as he scampered off in search of the toy. The group wasn't really known for paying attention to anyone but themselves.

"It's no use," the Dean finally told Chang as he abandoned his place of observation beneath a shady oak tree. It had been a long road back to acknowledging his adversary's existence after the debacle of last spring, but an inspiring Winger speech during the holidays had encouraged him to mend fences. "Britta is obsessed with this volunteer project that Shirley is helping her with, and Pierce just hired Abed and Troy to do this series of mock interviews for a viral web campaign Hawthorn Wipes wants to do. And Jeff and Annie are always in their own world, so good luck on getting his attention...I mean, their attention."

Chang arched an eyebrow at the bald man before dropping his frisbee to the ground in defeat. "It's not fair!" he grumbled as he sat down on the bench next to the Dean. "I just wanted to be included. Yeah, so I kind of gave them a hard time that first year and might have taken on Abed's darkest timeline or whatever last year, but the past is the past! They forgive each other ALL the time for way worse stuff. You'd think they could let this go."

"They probably have but only because they don't care enough about anyone else to remember that it happened in the first place," the Dean shrugged. "They're not going to change, Ben. It's been four years like this, and it's only gotten worse. They'll leave Greendale and forget that we ever existed. Abed and Troy will finally come out of the not-so-secret closet, Shirley will eventually convince Britta that she'd make a perfect Christian housewife, Jeff and Annie will finally start dating and they'll all go to visit Pierce on Sunday afternoons when he inevitably gets put in a retirement home."

The usually optimistic educator didn't sound particularly sad about his assessment of the future. Instead, he sounded as if he had numbly accepted that the one thing he had wanted most since the first time he laid eyes on Jeff Winger just would never be. He would never look to him for wisdom like he did Shirley or for a challenge like he did Britta or for manly competition like he did Troy or for love like he would Annie. There was only so much room in the man's self-centered life, and other than his mom, it was all taken up by a vivacious mother of three boys, a frustrating heir to a wet wipe dynasty, a strangely creative aspiring filmmaker, an unsuspecting home repair prodigy, a free-spirited society challenger and a beautiful little breath of fresh air in a cardigan and a skirt. Those six, that group, had become the center of Jeff's universe, and there wasn't room for a lover of mannequin legs or a Moby lookalike of a dean.

"And us, Craig? What happens after they graduate?"

"I'll still be the dean," he said simply. "It's not my job to be their friend. It's my job to be their dean. I know that now. I've accepted it, it's done."

"What about me?"

"You'll find a study group of your own," the Dean told him. "You'll get enrolled in classes again and meet your own best friends. Three years from now, you'll be just like them and won't remember this conversation."

"Maybe it will be different..."

The Dean shook his head knowingly before pushing up his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "It won't be," he assured him, almost affectionately. This really was his role, and finally, he was okay with it. "This is my school. I promise it won't be any different with you."


	7. Jeff

There were some days when he was pretty sure that the version of him ten years ago would hardly recognize the man he had become, and today was one of those days. It was Sunday morning, which meant Jeff had approximately six hours behind the sewing machine ahead of him. Layers of pink tulle and rolls of elastic thread were spread across the kitchen table. He had pinned the pattern up to the lightboard on his left and a very generous cup of coffee was situated to his left. For all intents and purposes, he had pretty much everything he needed to see this little project of his to fruition.

To say it all began last week when a particular young girl with eyes as big as the moon started whimpering in his direction, just begging him to figure out a way to make her dream come true, would only tell part of the story. To fully understand how Jeff had found himself in this predicament, you would have to go back just over a decade to a blonde with spiral curls and a community college Spanish class.

Without meeting Britta, he wouldn't have made friends with that wayward study group, and without that group of misfits, he wouldn't have been convinced to take part in some ridiculous debate. If he hadn't done that debate, he never would have kissed Annie, and if he hadn't kissed her (twice) that first year, they probably would have never become as connected as their lives did those four years at Greendale. And without that time in his life, he wouldn't have this part, and this part was pretty much the best thing that had ever happened to him. Then again, the way that the sleeve of his grays sweater was now sewn to a piece of shimmering bubblegum pink spandex probably wouldn't have happened either.

What he was really getting at here was that he went through all of that to meet and fall in love with the overly ambitious, doe-eyed Jewish princess that was Annie Edison, and now, five years after they had married, he was doing his very best to make a tutu for their daughter. She was pretty much a replica of her mother, right down to the way she used her eyes to get her way with Jeff. So when a girl in her class – one that actually had two dads, one of which who was a designer for Gymboree – told her that her daddy was making her costume for the upcoming recital at their preschool, Gracie had insisted that Jeff make hers. It had taken exactly three minutes of pleading and a pointed look from his wife to convince him that he was going to do this for his daughter. He never stood a chance.

He had spent a long time on the Internet pouring over patterns and checking message boards more often frequented by dance moms rather than their male counterparts. When a mom in New York posted a link to a pretty simply but absolutely adorable tutu, Jeff had thought it simple enough to pull off in one afternoon while Annie took Gracie for a play date over at Grandpa Pierce's castle. It was really the same mansion the old man had been knocking around for years, but Gracie was absolutely convinced it was magic, and neither Jeff nor Annie had the heart to break the dreams their little girl had built up in her head when it came to Pierce. The two of them just loved each other unconditionally, and the default patriarch of their little group was probably the closest thing Gracie would ever have to a grandfather.

Exactly six hours later, he sewed the last sequin onto the top and smiled down at his completed project. It was exactly like the photograph on the website and just as he had imagined it in his head. There was a full skirt of pink tulle set perfectly against the pink sparkly bodice. A satin ribbon accentuated the waste and a handful of shimmering sequins were sprinkled across the top. He had even managed to save enough ribbon for Annie to weave through Gracie's bun the night of the recital. It might not be ready to be sold in stores, but he knew it would be perfect when his little girl played the title role in the "Princess and the Frog" next week.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Look what Grandpa Pierce got for me," Gracie screamed as she came running into the dining room five minutes later. She held a stuffed replica of the latest Disney princess to hit the silver screen as well as a tiny little pink baseball glove. That was his girl. "Mommy said that you were working on my dress. Is it done, Daddy? Can I see it?"

"Yeah, let's see what we got there," Annie said as she came in after her daughter, pausing to set her purse down before coming over to kiss her husband. "Did you get everything done?"

"What do you think?" he said as he held up the costume. "Does it pass the inspection of the Winger girls?"

"Daddy, it's beautiful!" Gracie gushed. "I am going to look just like a princess! It's way better than the stupid thing Hope's dad is making her."

"Be nice, Gracie," Annie corrected her automatically before smiling up at Jeff. "It is pretty though. Are you sure you did this? You didn't have Shirley come over and do it for you?"

Jeff frowned at her. "Annie, I'm hurt!"

"Hey, I still remember those cupcakes you pretended to make for Gracie's birthday last year. I can't help it if you have a track record, Winger," she teased. Mischief danced in her eyes. "Why don't I go help Gracie try it on so you can see the fruits of your labor?"

Jeff went about cleaning up the dining room while he listened to his girls talking in Gracie's bedroom down the hall. He had just managed to tuck the sewing machine in the hall closet when she came pirouetting out into the hallway. "Daddy, look at me. I look just like the storybook!" Gracie spun around in circles and then lifted her short leg into the air in what she thought was a ballet pose. "Daddy, do I look as beautiful as Mommy?"

"You look just like your mommy," he said softly as he picked her up and spun them slowly in a circle. Gracie leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered her thanks in his ear before pulling back to grin up at him. She really was a spitting image of Annie. "Yup, just like her."

"Cool," she decided before looking up at him. "Do you want to go outside now? I want to try out that new baseball glove Grandpa Pierce got me before dinner!"

"Do you think you can get changed?" Annie asked as Gracie passed back. When her independent daughter yelled back that she had it, Annie joined Jeff in the living room where he was getting some of the plush baseballs Gracie liked to play with from her toy basket.

"I've been thinking..." Jeff said as he finally found the third ball tucked beneath a stack of Dora books. "You're doing good at the hospital. It might be good if someone stayed home with Gracie. I mean, we'd keep her in school some, but I kind of like this whole dad thing." They had talked about it a little bit, but he had always just assumed it would be Annie that stayed home. She liked being at the hospital though, and Jeff was kind of over the whole lawyer thing. "If that's okay with you, of course."

Annie nodded as Gracie came back into the living room dressed to play outside. She had a little Greendale baseball cap over her dark ponytail and her hand already stuffed in the pink glove. While Jeff only saw Annie when he looked at their daughter, she knew that a significant portion of that personality came from her daddy. It only made her fall a little more in love with both of them every day.

"We could manage that," she smiled as she followed them toward the backyard.

_Yeah_, Jeff thought to himself as he squatted down to play catcher to Gracie's pitcher and Annie's batter, _totally different person_, and he had never been happier in his life.


	8. Chang & Troy

Being a minority in a predominantly white community was never easy, and that's why Troy reached for a scrub brush that Sunday when the graffiti started showing up on the windshield of Chang's moped. He'd had a few slurs show up on his locker back in high school, but he had always just chocked it up to immature envy since he was the star quarterback and others were jealous of his talent. However, with a semester of college under his belt, he knew that it was more than that this time. This was pure hate in the form of a few evil words, and the last thing he wanted was someone to be hurt by them.

He didn't even really like Chang, but he knew that it wasn't the point. He didn't have to like him to sympathize with him. No one should ever have to endure that senseless kind of attack. It didn't make sense to him that it was still happening a long time after those Civil Rights protests he'd heard about in history class back in high school. Sure, diversity wasn't exactly the rage in Greendale, but he still had enough friends of different backgrounds to know what was right and wasn't. Annie was Jewish, Abed was Muslim and Pierce was old. Shirley was black like him, and even Britta was sometimes called a minority because she was a woman, though he suspected that wasn't actually quite true. Only Jeff seemed to be free of these differences, though among his friends, Troy that actually made him different in his own way.

He is thinking about this as he gathers the supplies from the janitor's closet the next Thursday, just after they had gotten back particularly harsh test results from the pop quiz Chang had given Tuesday. His teacher hadn't made it out to the faculty parking lot yet, so he estimated that he still had fifteen minutes or so to wipe away the last remnants of the cliché slur written in shoe polish on Chang's scooter. Annie walks by and stops to watch him for a minute before abandoning her backpack safely beneath an oak tree. She wordlessly starts to slosh soapy water over the glass and unknowingly picks up Troy's cause. They don't say anything when they walk off in opposite directions after the last little bit is scraped away. In fact, they don't acknowledge it at all, even when he catches her eye the next morning before study group.

They've met silently in the parking lot two more times when Shirley shows up on Tuesday morning. She has a straight razor, which actually helps remove the black lettering a lot more easily than anything he had managed to find on campus. He figures that Annie must have mentioned something but doesn't bother to ask. He just smiles up at the older woman kindly when she pats his hand, reminding him of how his mother used to silently acknowledge whenever he had done something good as a kid. Abed joins them on Friday afternoon, producing a few rags he recognizes from his father's restaurant so they can dry the moped when they're finished.

By week three of his little recognizance mission, Britta and Pierce have shown up to make sure that everything gets done in the short sliver of time between class and when Chang leaves for the day. Britta seemed like a shoe-in, but Troy is understandably surprised when Pierce lends a hand. They work as a group, silently side by side, to rid the vehicle of the hate speech. When Jeff finally gets word about what they're doing, he talks to this guy he knows in personal surveillance from his days as a lawyer and sets up a real stakeout so they can try to catch the perpetrator. Two days later, the Dean watches as a pair of police officers escort an angry pseudo-anarchist named Drew from the campus. Troy doesn't recognize him, but Annie points out that he sat in the back of the classroom and never really said anything. It turns out he was failing the class, and slowly, the story starts to come out.

The day that Drew is officially expelled from Greendale and ordered to perform 250 hours of community service as well as attend tolerance classes at the community center, Chang finally comes to talk to Troy about what he had been doing. He doesn't ask why Troy never said anything or why he even started helping at all. He just lets a rare moment of humanity shine through and thanks the young man genuinely for what he had done. A mutual look of understanding passes between them in that moment, and Troy feels a little more like a man. He's growing up and realizing slowly that the world can be a pretty cruel place. And then later, when Britta hands him a glass of Coke and Abed turns up the volume on the movie they're watching at Annie's new apartment, he realizes that it can also be pretty cool. Demographics and differences bedamned, they were all just human beings – Greendale Human Beings.


	9. Pierce & the Dean

Annie had a baby. Not only did Annie have a baby, but she had a baby with Jeff. This was a big deal for their little study group, even bigger than their wedding two years after graduating from Greendale. Everyone had become invested in their relationship at that point, and the members of their band of misfits lived vicariously through Annie's ever pain and joy those long nine months. Once little Gracie Winger came barreling into the world on a very cold night in February, she had pretty much become the mascot of the former "mean clique." Needless to say, Gracie kind of changed some things.

Now that she was a few months old, Jeff and Annie had decided to throw caution to the wind and embrace both their religious traditions. Annie had taken Gracie through the Jewish traditions of blessing a newborn, while Jeff had made a concession to his very Catholic mother to have the baby christened. He didn't really believe in that stuff but he believed in making his mom happy, so they set up a little ceremony at a nice Catholic church near downtown. All of their friends were there, including DeanPelton and Pierce. They both wanted to be the godfather, and they wer both crushed at the baptism that Sunday afternoon when Troy got the title by default.

"Pierce is about 100 years old, Annie," Jeff reminded his wife when she brought up the suggestion of making their oldest friend the godfather.

"Even if he was a viable option as a person, he might not be able to handle actually raising Gracie if something happened to us."

"That's why we picked Britta," she replied knowingly. "She was your choice, remember?"

"She's basically the whole reason we're together, I felt like I owed it to her. Besides, she really wanted it for some reason," Jeff shrugged as he shifted his daughter on his shoulder and continued to pace the path around the living room. "I guess we might as well give it to Troy. I mean, those two are married anyhow. It kind of makes sense. Who else would we pick? The Dean? Ha."

And so they asked one of the few stable couples in their lives to act as the godparents to their only child in hopes that it would never actually come to that but with the understanding that Troy would actually make a pretty decent father if it did happen. He also had a unique way of balancing Britta out and actually making her normal. It wasn't the worst selection they could have made, and so it was decided and formally announced a week before the ceremony was to happen. Pierce tried to hide his tears when Annie asked Britta, and the Dean cried when Troy congratulated himself on Facebook.

"Can you believe they picked Troy? Troy!" the Dean exclaimed as he waited in the long line to congratulate the parents. He had been there the day Gracie was born, waiting with an overzealous bunch of pink balloons and stuffed bears in ballerina outfits. "He still wears pajamas with feet in them and has sleepovers at Abed's apartment."

"I would have spoiled that little girl rotten," Pierce grimaced as he shuffled forward. "I would make a perfect godfather. Can you believe Jeff said I was too old?"

"He said that I would probably just end up dressing her in ridiculous outfits. Okay, so I wore a stork costume when they brought her home from the hospital and might have dressed up like Baby New Year and jumped into his arms a month before she was born. But it was New Year's, I was just celebrating! I get really excited."

Even Pierce knew how many levels of wrong that last statement was but decided it better just to ignore it. They were nearing the front of the queue and he could see Annie's beaming face as she held her daughter proudly next to her husband. He suddenly couldn't be angry anymore, not the way that Troy grinned down at the little baby. He had enough childlike wonder for it to make sense. And Britta was saying something to Jeff as he rolled his eyes, and he knew that the blonde had bitter sarcasm in her to be like Jeff. In a really weird, messed-up way, they might actually be kind of perfect replacements for the eternally optimistic Annie and forever cynical Jeff.

"Oh, Pierce, I'm so glad you're here!" Annie exclaimed as she held out Gracie for him to take. "I wanted to make sure we got a picture of you holding her. We got them of the whole family, but she's been waiting all day for her Grandpa Pierce."

"Uh, duh-doy," Troy shook his head. "You're like totally her grandpa. We decided."

"You hear that Princess Gracie?" Pierce smiled down at her. "I'm your Grandpa Pierce." Even Jeff smiled as Annie snapped the picture and then handed over the camera to Britta so she could get one with her and Jeff in it as well. When Jeff finally took Gracie back, Pierce hugged Annie for an extra longmoment. "You always were my favorite."

"That's okay," Annie winked at him. "I don't mind coming in second to her."

After Pierce had ambled off to find Abed and Shirley, the Dean stepped up to congratulate the little family. "What, no costume?" Annie asked, clearly disappointed. "I don't think she knows what she's looking at but she always giggles when we show her pictures of your outfits."

"Well, I do have this nun habit in my car…"

"Not appropriate," Jeff muttered. "Not appropriate, no, not at my mom's church."

"Well, I suppose I could figure something out in time for St. Patrick's Day. It's just a few weeks away."

Annie smiled up at him and nodded. "We'd like that."

Later, after everything was over, Jeff held his daughter close to his chest while his friends laughed happily in a corner of the church's dining hall. They still didn't quite make sense or fit together in a neat way, but he was still really glad his daughter was going to grow up knowing these people. From her honorary Grandpa Pierce to whatever the hell she would call the Dean, they would be her family. They had certainly become his and Annie's.


	10. Neil & Annie

Once upon a time, two lost souls had needed saving and their savior came on two different Sunday nights in the form of one Jeffrey Winger.

For Neil, it had happened when he had gotten locked in the biology lab just two hours before he was supposed to pick up Vicki for their third date. This was a big date, the date, where you know, stuff was supposed to happen. He had endured the grueling and awkward conversation after three months of just hanging out and two actual dates that she said counted toward her self-professed rule. Now that it was actually going to go down, there was no way he was going to miss it.

One by one, he started dialing phone numbers from his address book, praying that a family member or a classmate would take pity on him and pick up the phone. After both his parents, his sister, Troy, Abed, Britta, the Dean, a few professors and the janitor failed to pick up, he tried Jeff on a whim. The former lawyer had helped him out once before, so it didn't seem too far-fetched that he might answer the call again.

"Uh, yeah?" came Jeff's hesitant over the line. "Who is this?"

"It's Neil," he replied. When Jeff didn't answer right away, he added, "You know, Fat Neil."

"Oh, hey, Neil, what's up?"

"I'm sort of, kinda, you know, locked in the school."

"Ugh, why are you at Greendale on a Sunday? You know what,nevermind, I don't actually care," he declared honestly. It would be rude coming from anyone else, but Neil knew Jeff's brusque delivery was just indicative of who he was. "I'll call the Dean and have him come over. He'll be so happy that I called him that he won't care why."

Fifteen minutes later, the Dean arrived to let Neil out of the biology lab. Jeff sent him a text ten minutes after that wishing him luck on his date with Vicki. He even recommended a little dive of a restaurant that had really good calamari that came in handy. It wasn't really a lot, but it pretty much made Jeff one of the best friends Neil had ever had.

The same could be said for Annie, though Jeff's swooping in was much more monumental. She had promised that she would be fine when Troy and Abed were away at some Inspector Spacetime convention. After all, she had lived by herself in a much worse place for nearly two years without incident. Of course, two hours after they left, the power went out in the building and the brick mysteriously disappeared from its usual place in the propped-open doorway.

"Jeff? Jeff!" Annie whispered in a harsh tone over the static-filled line. "There is someone in my building."

"What?" he asked sleepily. It was nearing midnight and he had just been in the middle of a very nice dream about luxury sheets and designer dreams. "Who is this? Annie?"

"Yes, it's Annie," she snapped. "Someone is in my hallway and Troy and Abed are gone and the power is out and I'm scared. I need you to come now. I'm…"

His first thought was to complain about the late hour and then he thought about Annie all alone in that subpar building, and he was already out of bed pulling on his shoes. "I want you to stay on the line until I get there," he told her. "Make sure you have a flashlight and keep the doors locked."

The drive to their building took exactly twelve minutes. He should know, he's driven it so many times that he could probably do it in his sleep. He surveys the parking lot as he pulls in and doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Annie is talking about the book she is reading, just rattling on and on in that cute way she does when she gets nervous. Jeff meets her at the front door so that she can let him in, and only when her arms are wrapped tightly around his neck does he hang up. He follows her back upstairs to their apartment and checks the locks twice when they're safely inside the small living room. Annie hands him a box of matches and points toward the candles she'd laid out around the intimate space while she heads toward the hall closet for a blanket.

"Thanks for coming over, Jeff," she said as she handed over the soft throw. "I feel like such a baby for being scared."

"Don't worry about it," he mused as they sat down side by side on the couch. Annie tucked her feet under her as she pulled her own blanket more tightly around her body. Jeff reached over to adjust it around her shoulders and then absently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Do you want to maybe get some sleep? I'll be okay out here."

"Or you could come in there," she suggested. "It'll get cold out here quick."

He thinks about how cold it will be out here and how dangerous it would be in there before shaking his head. "I'll be fine, Annie," he promised her. "You should try to get some sleep. Really, I'll be fine."

"Alright, if you're sure…" she hesitated. Jeff stood up with her to hug her and wish her goodnight. When she didn't pull away, he felt one of his hands slide down to her hip and his other trace up her spine until it was buried in her hair. Before he knew it, he was kissing her soundly until they were both shivering from the cold and the intensity and really, the Annie of it all. "Um…wow."

"Uh, yeah," he tittered nervously. "You should definitely sleep in there."

Annie slid nervously out of his embrace and turned on her heel. She turned and looked back at him once and smiled in this way that was very Annie. She would tell him later that she knew then that there was no going back and that she was glad that it had finally happened. "Good night, Jeff, thanks for coming over to save me."

The officially got together the next day.


	11. Jeff & Abed

_Action._

Saying goodbye was never easy, but Jeff knew it was his responsibility to say the words the rest of the group couldn't say that cold and lonely day in Greendale. It still amazed him how many people were there. For a guy who was certainly a far departure from the norm, Abed had a lot of friends. A lot of people were there to say goodbye to someone who had departed the world far too quickly and far too soon.

"I keep thinking that Abed would have the perfect narration for this scene," Jeff said as he smiled down at the rows of people dressed in black before him. "You see, to him, life was basically one big movie. He knew that we had all been cast into these perfect parts, and everyone had their role to play. He liked to pretend that his was as a director, and I suppose in a lot of ways that is true. He was pretty fond of making these subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, hints in the direction he thought we needed to be."

His eyes found Britta's in the crowd then. Without Abed, he knows that they would have never formed the study group. Sure, she had been the catalyst for the whole set-up, but it was he who had orchestrated the invitations to the others. And if he hadn't wanted that damn shirt all the way back in Chang's class, he probably would have never done that weird presentation with Pierce, which is really what started to bond them all.

"He was a big believer in creating these perfect moments. When he started that first film project freshman year, he let us all see a little bit of how his mind works. We got to understand that he used movies to say the words he couldn't. Over time, we got to see that even if he lived inside a script, he could use the dialogue and the stage directions and the character notes to get his point across. He even started to learn how to live outside those lines."

Shirley smiled up at him. It was when they had worked on their viral video that Abed had started to learn that some things were about ego and sometimes that got in the way of what was really important. His disaster of a project rivaled only the Dean's terrible commercial in just how dark it had gotten. However, in the end, Abed had pulled them all together to do something pretty awesome for their friend.

"Perhaps his greatest gift, though, was accepting us just as we are. He saw life through his lens in a way that never allowed us to hide who we were. He just got it, and the best part was that he never made us feel bad about it. Sometimes we didn't live up to the grand characters he had in his mind, but he learned to adapt. Sometimes he even figured out that as the plot changed, so did the characters."

His eyes drifted to Annie. It had been Abed who had first seen their chemistry, back during freshman year when they had been on the debate team. He had predicted the kiss before it had happened, back when he had just felt an inkling of a spark that would turn out to be the wildfire of emotions that he felt for Annie. Everyone had thought it foolish back then, but Abed had known that it was inevitable. Now that they were officially together and he was actually kind of happy in love, he wondered how he had ever missed it. He still wasn't sure, but he was glad that Abed hadn't.

"It's not to say our friend was perfect. No, his imagination could take us into some dark places where he forgot what reality meant and gave in fully to the dream world he wanted to live in. It was our job to keep him grounded just a little, just as it was his to make sure that we let our dreams fly. I think that's what I will miss most of all, that delicate balance. It always reminded me why we need each other."

It is then and only then that he allows himself to look at Troy. Tucked between Britta and Annie, it was he who was most impacted by the loss of Abed. He had originally planned to speak but couldn't find the words or the courage when the time had actually come. There are moments when he wishes that it was him instead of his best friend, but he knows the secret that only Abed had ever told him. Troy could be fine without Abed, but Abed would have never made it without his best friend.

"And so, we say goodbye to our friend with a promise that we will never forget. Our memories of him will be like those memorable little flashes of scenes from movies we loved as a kid. We'll smile whenever we think about them because they helped make some things okay when they weren't and that shaped who we are. I think Abed would like it like that. He always was the biggest dreamer."

_Fade out._


End file.
